Ting: making publics through provocation, conflict and appropriation

Abstract

In Swedish the word "ting" has different meanings. It can mean "things", "matters" and "a session at court" as well as the act of appropriating space. This one-day workshop starts in the notion of the artifact as a "ting", and design as something that raises a question, provokes a discussion, and creates a public through which agonistic encounters occur. This particular lens allows us to approach design beyond 'merely producing artifacts'. Instead, we come to see it as a production of provocations, speculations, and alternative interpretations of the social world as well as new sets of relationships between participants in this public.

Full text at ACM